


First Aid and TLC

by Persiflage



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Cooking, Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode 4:01, Episode Tag, F/M, First Aid, First Kiss, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Mentions of Mack/Elena, Older Man/Younger Woman, POV Skye | Daisy Johnson, Phil Coulson's Prosthetic Hand, Phil is Great at Taking Care of Daisy, Safehouses, Sexual Content, Skye | Daisy Johnson's Superpowers, TLC, Workplace Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-23
Updated: 2016-09-23
Packaged: 2018-08-16 20:34:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8116582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persiflage/pseuds/Persiflage
Summary: Phil just wants to help Daisy take better care of herself.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [zauberer_sirin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/gifts), [RowboatCop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RowboatCop/gifts), [BrilliantlyHorrid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrilliantlyHorrid/gifts), [Skyepilot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyepilot/gifts).



> Oh boy! The S4 opener was insanely shippy considering the fact that the babes NEVER even saw each other or interacted with each other - they just couldn't stop thinking or talking about each other. Anyway, Daisy is clearly in need of some tender loving care, and who better to provide it than her favourite puny human guy?

When Daisy boards the bus to meet with Elena a few days after her first encounter with the Ghost Rider and sees who's waiting for her instead of Elena she almost turns around and gets back off the bus. But that's not really an option, which is no doubt why Coulson's here in Elena's place. She can't help glowering at him before she takes the seat in front of him.

"Daisy." He doesn't say her name so much as sigh it, and she wants to tell him to cut that out, that he's not to make things harder for her (and she'd thought they were hard enough already) – but she can't risk making a scene, drawing someone's attention, or being remembered so she merely asks in a low voice, "What are you doing here?"

"Elena was worried about you," he says, and she can sense that he's forcibly restraining himself from touching her. "She confided to me that she'd met up with you a handful of times to give you intel and other things." She can hear his breathing becoming a little unsteady and senses his heart rate increasing a little. "Daisy, you've got to be more careful about not over-using your powers."

She half turns in her seat, appearing to look out of the window, but she's looking at him from the corner of her eye and sees how anxious he looks. "It's none of your business, Coulson," she says as harshly as she can while keeping her voice low.

"I disagree," he says with quiet emphasis.

"Why?" she demands angrily, but still speaking quietly. "I'm not worth it. Not worth either your friendship nor your concern."

She feels his hand touch her shoulder – it's so brief it barely lasts more than a few seconds, but it's like she's touched a live electrical wire. No one has touched her so gently in such a long time, and it takes every ounce of willpower she has not to start weeping.

"You're wrong," he says softly. "You're worth a lot more. You're extremely important, Daisy." As if he senses she's close to tears, he fumbles in his pocket, then pulls out a bottle of pills, the ones she'd been expecting from Elena.

"Please, Daisy, please be more careful," he says, and once she's taken the bottle from him, careful not to let her fingers touch his because she couldn't bear a second touch right now, he gets up and moves down the bus, leaving at the next stop.

Back at her van, she opens the bottle of pills and isn't surprised to find a small folded piece of paper jammed inside the lid. It's a set of coordinates and a number beneath it, and when she looks up the coordinates, she finds they're for a residential neighbourhood. She guesses the number is for a house, and she considers that it might be a trap, but knows that if Coulson had wanted to trap her, he could easily have done so on the bus – now that SHIELD are legit again, they must have any number of new agents whose faces she wouldn't recognise.

She drives her van to within a block of the address, then gets out and walks the rest of the way, scoping out the neighbourhood – it's nice but not too flashy, and the house, when she reaches it, is a modest two-storey with a cared-for appearance. She wonders if it's a SHIELD safehouse, or if it's Coulson's own place.

She spends an hour keeping watch, but the street's pretty deserted in the middle of the day, so she eventually approaches the house. The front door opens before she has quite reached it, and she is instantly wary until she sees Coulson's face peering around it at her. He looks relieved to see her, she notices, and then he steps back quickly so she can slip inside.

"Daisy." He doesn't sigh her name this time, but there's still an almost unbearable amount of emotion in his voice. "Come through." He gestures towards the back of the house, then leads the way down the short hall.

She notices that it's got a couple of homey touches – a side table on which a vase of flowers is sitting, daisies she notes with a roll of her eyes, and on the wall above a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge in early morning sunlight.

He leads her into the kitchen, and she baulks a little in the doorway when she sees a plastic box holding various medical supplies set out on one side of the table. The other side has two place settings, and she only now becomes aware of the scent of food filling the air. Her stomach growls and Coulson smiles.

"Let's eat first," he says. "Then, if you'll let me, I'd like to help you." He gestures at the medical stuff, and she swallows, then nods. 

They eat in silence – a thick stew that's filling and very tasty, and she tries to remember the last time she had a home-cooked meal, but she can't. There's thick chunks of bread to go with the stew, and afterwards home-made apple pie and ice cream, and she feels like crying again, but she bites her lip and forces herself to hold the tears at bay. The silence is more companionable than she'd anticipated – she'd thought she'd feel awkward, being around Coulson again after all this time.

He clears the table swiftly, and puts on the coffee maker, then gestures at the box of supplies again. "May I?" he asks.

"What have you got there?" she asks.

"Clean bandages," he tells her, "some salve for the bruises. There's also more of those bone growth tablets, and some painkillers – prescription issue, so stronger."

"Did Jemma give you all this?" she asks warily.

Coulson shakes his head swiftly. "No. I – uh – I dug around in her files for information, but I didn't approach her. _I couldn't._ " 

His voice sounds pained on those two words, and she realises she has no idea what's been going on back at the Playground – Elena gives her bits and pieces of information as she picks it up from Mack, but this idiotic 'no fraternisation between SHIELD agents and Inhumans' means that Elena and Mack have hardly seen each other in the last eight months.

"Why?" she asks, swallowing down her emotions. "Is Jemma okay?"

"She's fine," he says quickly. "But – well, she's the special scientific adviser for the new Director these days, so I don't see much of her – not that I'm at the base much anyway these days. I mostly live aboard Zephyr1."

"I see," she says flatly. And she does – she probably sees and understands – more than Coulson realises. He's been demoted and put on the shitlist, all because of her. A man with more than 30 years service to the organisation that brought him back from the dead against his will, and he's being treated like a raw recruit who can't be trusted. And it's all her fault.

"Hey." Coulson cuts through her mental recriminations with a light touch of his hand to her elbow. "It's not your fault, okay. If you want to blame anyone, blame the people who put the Sokovia Accords into place." He smiles at her – a genuine smile, she notices. "Anyway, I prefer being a field agent again."

She nods sharply. "You were never really happy being Director, were you?" she asks, and he blinks, his mouth falling open briefly, before he snaps it closed, then nods back.

"No, I wasn't." He gestures at the supplies again. "Shall we?"

"Okay," she says, then realises that sounds ungracious. "Thank you, Phil."

He beams at her, and she realises he's happy that she's calling him 'Phil' again.

She shrugs out of her coat, and pulls off her beanie, then takes off her shirt (and is momentarily glad she put on a bra this morning – she doesn’t always). Coulson begins to unwind the bandages around her arms, his hands gentle, even the prosthetic.

"Is that a new prosthetic?" she asks, and he stops and looks up at her, not quite gaping this time, but clearly on the verge.

"It is, but how did you know?"

"Different vibrations," she says, and he looks awed, and she has to look away because she can't bear it when Coulson looks at her like that.

"It's got an X-Ray program built in," he tells her, and presses something on his wrist, and it's her turn to gape a bit when he scans her arm and shows her the tiny micro-fractures. She can't help wincing a bit at the sight. 

"Turn it off," she begs, her voice harsher than she'd intended.

He does so immediately, then apologises. "I'm sorry, Daisy, I didn't think. I just – " He breaks off and shakes his head, then turns his attention to the bandage on her other arm.

"It's a cool trick," she tells him in a softer tone. 

He gives her his boyish grin, the goofy one he gets when he's waxing lyrical about Captain America, or WW2 spy gadgets. "It is," he agrees. Then he pulls the box of supplies over and fishes out a pot of salve. "Are you okay with me putting this on?"

She nods. "I trust you, Phil."

His breath hitches quite audibly, but he doesn't speak – she suspects he can't, for the moment, without giving away even more obviously what her words mean. And she thinks about what it means to him, that she trusts him – especially when she's a wanted Inhuman. It means a lot to her, too, though, to be able to trust him absolutely.

He's careful and thorough about applying the salve to both her arms, holding each one steady in his left hand while he rubs the salve on with his right. It's a bit unbearable, though – he's so tender and gentle, and she wants to cry, but she bites her lip and sits rigidly still until the tears recede again, unspilled.

Afterwards he bandages both her arms with the self-same tenderness and care, then he passes her top to her. "Take the salve with you," he tells her when she's dressed again. "I'll make sure Elena gets some more, as well as the painkillers and the bone growth pills."

"Phil." She can't keep the tears back this time, and he says, "Oh Daisy," in a really heart-broken tone, and the next moment, they're in each others arms, holding on for dear life. She can feel he's crying too, which just makes her weep even more. 

She's not sure how long they sob on each other, but eventually they both stop crying, and he pulls back to thumb the last of her tears from her cheek, and she doesn't even think, she just leans in and kisses him, and she's pretty sure he's not thinking either, because he kisses her back without hesitating. 

He slips his left hand under her jacket and shirt to spread his palm, broad and strong, on her back, and she shudders with want.

"Phil," she moans, and he presses her body against his so that she becomes aware of his rapidly stiffening cock.

"Phil, please." She's not sure exactly what she's asking him for, and she thinks he might not be any clearer because he drags his mouth free of hers, then asks, "What do you want?"

"You," she says after a few thumping heartbeats.

"Upstairs?" he asks, looking both tentative and delighted.

She nods, and lets him lead the way, her right hand in his left. The bedroom into which he leads her is comfortably furnished – the bed looks massive, somehow – and has a pleasing colour scheme. 

He undresses her carefully, then she undresses him, until they're in just their underwear. His boxers are straining to hold his erection, and she can't help licking her lips as she realises how big Phil Coulson's cock is.

He guides her to lie down on the bed, then eases her panties off, before stripping off his boxers, and she immediately reaches for him. He climbs onto the bed beside her, and positions his body over hers, then asks, "Do you want to go on top?"

"No," she says firmly. "Not this time."

He blushes in the most charming fashion at her words, then eases her thighs apart before guiding himself inside her. She's wet enough that she can take him fairly easily, but he's so big that she can feel herself stretching to accommodate his girth. It feels good, though – and while she tries not to make comparisons, they're sort of inevitable, because the last guy she had sex with is eight months dead, and she's been far too busy saving Inhumans and stopping Watchdogs and their like, to have time to find someone else to date, never mind fuck.

They move slowly together, finding each other's rhythm in this as easily as they've found their rhythm in other things.

Afterwards, they lie curled up together, bodies wrapped around each other, and heartrates settling slowly. 

"I never really thought we'd do this," she confides quietly. "I didn't think you saw me like this."

"For the longest time I didn't dare to," he says, brushing her sweaty hair back from her forehead, then pressing his lips lightly to the same spot. "I told myself – even told May – that you were the nearest thing I had to a daughter. But it was a lie."

"Good," she says firmly. "I have a father – he might not know it, but Cal, Dr Winslow, is still my father. I don't need another."

"What do you need?" he asks, his eyes soft and his smile tender.

"You," she says frankly. "A friend, an ally, a lover."

He kisses her, soft and slow, then smiles, his expression a bit more bashful, which is funny, considering they're naked in each other's arms right now. "I can be that."

"Good," she repeats. "Just don't get yourself fired."

"Promise," he says, making a cross over his heart, which surprises her into a chuckle, which in turn makes him beam.

"You can't let anyone know about this," she says.

"I know," he tells her with quiet emphasis. "It'll be a secret, I promise."

She nods. "Okay." She kisses him briefly. "I have to go."

He sighs heavily, then nods. "I know."

"You'd better shower before you leave here," she teases, "or you'll go back smelling of me."

He smirks. "I wouldn't mind, in other circumstances."

She shakes her head, then pulls herself away from him, trying to hide her reluctance at leaving him. She'd like to stay wrapped in him forever. But she can't. The world needs her. At least Phil understands that. And she knows that it's a big deal to be with a guy who does understand her as much as Phil Coulson does – she's never had that before, such complete understanding to go with the total trust. It's dizzying if she thinks about it too much.

He sits up on the bed and reaches for her, and she leans down, curling her hand around the back of his neck to hold him steady as she kisses him. "Take care of yourself, Phil."

"Try to take better care of yourself," he says.

She nods. "Thanks for the First Aid and TLC."

He smiles. "My pleasure."

"I'll be in touch."

"Okay." His face is soft with love and worry, but he still lets her walk out of there, and she's sure he knows as well as she does that this might be all they ever have – she could get killed, and so could he. There's no guarantees.

She hesitates in the doorway, but given their lives, she can't go without saying it. "I love you."

"Love you, too."

She nods, smiles, then heads downstairs. This has been a great break, but she has work to do. She thinks it'll go a bit easier now, though, thanks to Phil Coulson.


End file.
